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Mathieu Orfila was a Spanish toxicologist and chemist. He was also the founder of the science of toxicology.
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Alphonse Bertillon was a French police officer and biometrics researcher who applied the anthropological technique of anthropometry to law enforcement creating the Bertillion Method. (Identify criminals with measurements)
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Francis Galton provided the first workable fingerprint classification system.
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, has long been credited as an influence to forensic science due to his character's use of methods such as fingerprints, serology, ciphers, trace evidence, and footprints long before they were commonly used by actual police forces.
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Albert Sherman Osborn is considered the father of the science of questioned document examination in North America.
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Leone Lattes was an Italian scientist who devised a procedure by which dried blood stains could be restored and grouped in the blood type categories A, B, AB, or O.
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He was a pioneer in forensics ballistics.
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Edmond Locard was a French criminologist. He became known as "Sherlock Holmes of France". He formulated the basic principle of forensic science: "Every contact leaves a trace". This became known as Locard's exchange principle.